The labrum — which is in the shoulder — is not a good injury for a pitcher to have. Indeed, Tommy John surgery can represent less of a long term risk to a pitcher than severe shoulder injuries can. His season is definitely over at the very least.

In the wake of a Jon Paul Morosi article assessing the Jesus Montero-Michael Pineda trade there was a lot of back and forth on Twitter this morning talking about just how premature such assessments were. I agree that, given how much control the Yankees have over Pineda — five years at this point — it is kind of crazy to declare a trade winner. But man, this is not the way anyone in New York wanted things to start out.

UPDATE: Let’s head one conspiracy theory off at the pass:

Cashman says that in no way does he believe the Mariners had any knowledge of an injury. Says Pineda was a fully healthy player in January

I hate it though, I like Pineda. He was fun to watch here last year. But one of the things that Jack has taken seriously in Seattle is conditioning, diet, health and mechanics up and down the system, and he’s aggressively been fixing these things up and down the M’s system. Pineda had issues with conditioning and mechanics, so dealing him for offensive needs was a no-brainer. I think everyone, even the M’s, expected him to be fine for a couple more years, but his long term prognosis was never good. Selling high was the perfect move, and I do not think its unfair to say that at this point if Montero is merely league average that the M’s won this deal handily.

This probably isn’t worth much, but I had surgery to repair a SLAP tear in my shoulder a couple years ago, and my shoulder still hurts every day. Granted, I also broke my collarbone and dislocated my AC joint, so maybe that’s what causes the pain. But my experience makes me worried for the dude.